The Whole Story
by hidden-in-a-tree
Summary: The End. The Beginning. And All The Misery That Fell In-Between.
1. Chapter One

**The End.**

**  
**_"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep … that have taken hold …"_

_-Frodo Baggins, __Lord of the Rings: Return of the King__ by JRR Tolkien, directed by Peter Jackson_**  
**

The camera flicked on.

Greg stepped back from it and sat down on the chair positioned directly in front of the lens. His face was an off shade of white, tinged with yellow and green, but his eyes … his eyes that used to be friendly and open were now closed. Locked from within, they no longer shone with a brilliant brightness. Instead they seemed hollow and dead. His jaw was trembling slightly, but when he spoke, his once-warm and beautiful voice was monotone and calm.

"I'm sorry this is the way I'm going to say goodbye," he started, looking straight into the camera, "but it's the only way I could think of. I was never one for writing letters or notes, and going with … without saying goodbye felt too wrong. Well, maybe it wouldn't have mattered if I said goodbye or not."

He cleared his throat and looked to the left and down, staring at something beyond the camera's line of sight. Almost subconsciously, he raised his right hand, which was trembling slightly, and brushed an unloved strand of hair out of his right eye. His locks that used to be vibrant and youthful had fallen into disrepair – they were faded and seemed to have aged years beyond count.

"Before this, I knew who I was. I used to understand my place in the world; I was one of those good people who worked hard for others without looking for any reward. I was a good guy. That was my main source of pride – fighting against evil and helping other good people become victorious as well." His eyes flicked back to the camera. "Now I know I was wrong."

He exhaled loudly, and his nostrils flared slightly. His eyes appeared to be glowing in the low lighting of his living room. A couple tears escaped his lower lashes and left skinny trails of salty water down his well-defined cheeks.

"Good people don't do what I did. I was living a lie when I thought that I was one of you guys. I used to think that I might one day end up being as selfless as Nick … as caring as Sara. There was never a chance of that happening for me. I doomed myself to … to this. I ruined my life beyond repair.

"This video will be emailed to each of you at midnight today," Greg told the camera, his voice losing some of its firmness. "And by that time, I'll be dead. As soon as I'm done this video, I'm taking a bottle of sleeping pills and downing it with liquor." He smiled ruefully. "I figured that if alcohol was what started this mess, then it should end it as well."

Greg took a deep breath. "I know you'll rush to the scene to see if you can save me, because that's a part of your job, but I'm making sure there will be no rescuing me. I don't want to wake up from that self-induced sleep."

He gave a slight sob, and his jaw shook tremendously. His nostrils dilated furiously. He took his shaking hands and wiped them across his eyes.

"Waking up to this world would be the worst thing ever. There's nothing for me anymore. I helped fate take it away from me; I propagated it all. And I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I left the lab in such disgrace. I'm sorry that you all stood by and left me to my tears as I cleaned out my locker. I'm sorry that no one seemed to care.

"Just so you know, though – I didn't expect anyone to help me through it." Greg nodded as if to himself. "I knew that I disappointed every one of you more than I disappointed myself, more than my parents. Especially you, Grissom."

Greg parted his slightly chapped lips and ran his tongue over them. After taking another shuddering breath, he continued.

"My smoldering wreck of a life is my fault. I claim full responsibility for it. I may be a bit bitter about how easily every one of you decided to throw away our friendship … but it's in the past now. I didn't make an effort either. After – after getting out of jail, I didn't make any effort whatsoever.

"That's another thing haunting me now. The fact that I didn't try to get my life back in order. But it's too late now."

Both of Greg's eyes fixed onto the camera lens, and he didn't blink.

"I'm sorry. Goodbye."

He got up from his seat and turned off the camera.

It was 10:00 pm.

_"I paid for the concrete to build my prison. All the metal, all the materials, and even the plan for the box was brought to be by me._

_I'm the one who hid it from the world, fearing the darkness that would encase me, but wondering how it would feel anyways._

_I'm the one who made it airtight, knowing full well that I would run out of oxygen in a short amount of time._

_So why am I standing here on the edge of the black oblivion (that somehow seemed to have entered the tomb with me, matching my stride) screaming my lungs out and beating my fists against the walls, even though I'm sure no one can hear me?_

_I'm the one who stepped into my own grave."_


	2. Chapter Two

**The Beginning.**

_Cause and Effect of Alcohol, as learned by Greg Sanders._

It wasn't Greg's first time being drunk. Right after turning twenty-one on May fifth, he went out with his buddies to the bar down the street and drank himself into a stupor. Instead of waking up to a hot blonde with breasts out past her chin, he woke up next to his old collie, in his own bed, in his own home. The home he shared with his parents, his three fish, and his one budgie named Oscar Wilde. At least he didn't have to worry about any paternity suits or STDs – no, only an unimaginable headache and the need to vomit plagued Greg after his first dabble in the world of alcohol.

He told himself he'd never drink again.

Funny how everyone seems to eat their words in the end.

Greg hadn't touched alcohol in an obsessive or compulsive way until the Demetrius James scandal. However, depending on who you talked to, everyone called it something different. The Demetrius James case. The Demetrius James ordeal. The wrongful and should-be-punishable-by-death Demetrius James slaying.

The fact was that Greg knew he'd done the right thing. Demetrius James had been planning to kill the man lying on the ground – the man he'd been beating just minutes previous – and he'd also physically threatened Greg's life as well.

Even though he'd done the right thing, Greg couldn't shake the feeling that he'd crossed an imaginary boundary along the way. He was no longer an observer to the murderous underbelly of Las Vegas; he was a part of it. And once you gained entrance into that club, boy, there was no getting out, kind of like Hotel California.

The fact that he now had someone else's blood on his hands shook him to his very core. He didn't want to burden anyone else with his doubts and insecurities, so he bottled them up, and only uncorked them when he decided to raid his liquor cabinet. That oak cabinet that had once stood empty in his living room beside his over large stereo.

Once upon a time.

That wasn't the case now, though. As often as he could, he restocked that cabinet. Every day off, he tried to get through as much as possible, and he didn't even have a clue why.

Greg knew there were other outlets to getting rid of the guilt, subduing the horror of what humans did to each other, and the loneliness that came along with his career. Somehow, he got the idea into his head that he should learn to deal with life's problems on his own. Everyone had to have guilt, everyone had to see what was going on in the world, and due to the popularity of websites like eHarmony, everyone appeared to be lonely.

Nick got through just fine, and he didn't even have a girlfriend. Grissom had Sara, and Catherine and Warrick sort of had each other … but Greg was sure Hodges didn't have anyone.

But rather than buddy up with Hodges and trade tips on getting through life over margaritas, Greg would rather just drink until he passed out on his days off. He was the king of getting rid of a hangover in a hurry, and rarely anyone knew that he'd been drinking the night before.

Greg was smart, too – he didn't drink eight hours prior to going to work.

Everyone had their flaws. That was also a fact. And as long as their flaws didn't permeate to other people … what was the harm?

Greg was only hurting his own liver and killing off his own brain cells.

No harm, no foul, right?

Right?


	3. Chapter Three

**The Beginning.**

_Death Becomes Her … After Awhile._

Greg sighed as he sat at the break room table, _Life &_ _Style_ spread out in front of him. He flipped the pages dispassionately. He didn't particularly care if Angelina and Brad were having another spat. They were regular people. Why the masses followed them so religiously, he didn't know, because they were just normals thrown into the limelight, whether they wanted it or not.

"… and this is the break room, complete with a CSI who looks like he's about to fall asleep. He also has his own stash of Blue Hawaiian coffee somewhere in the room. He never shares, though …" Nick said loudly over his shoulder as he strolled into the room. A group of timid looking teenagers followed him in.

Greg looked up, a bewildered expression on his good-natured face.

"Greg, meet the teens who are interning here for a week while they're on summer vacation," the Texan said, gesturing for the teens to come into the room.

All in all, there were eight of them: four boys and four girls. Greg knew he'd never remember their names.

"This is Alisha, Spencer, Dominic, Delaine, Lucy, Damion, Rachel, and Josh," Nick said, pointing to each of them. Greg nodded to each person, and the teens smiled hesitantly at him.

"So how do you like the lab so far?" Greg asked the group at large. No one answered.

"Um, it's pretty cool," one of the girls – it might've been Delaine or Lucy – said, glancing around quickly as if she was shocked that she'd said anything. She brushed a piece of her brown, choppy hair behind her right ear, her eyes becoming fixed on the floor.

One of the guys came to her rescue and elaborated: "It's fascinating to see all the machines and how they correlate to our justice system."

"Oohh, _correlate_ …" Nick responded, shooting a grin at Greg, "that might be too big of a word for our ears, Spenc."

Spencer blushed a furious red, but he smiled anyways. Greg was surprised that his friend had gotten to know the kids so quickly; Nick really was great with people. Friendly, kind, and fun. A triple threat.

"Anyways, Greg, we still have to go check out Grissom's office. His fetal pig needs to be looked at," Nick said, waving to the younger CSI as he left the room, his troop following after him in a single file line.

Greg didn't even have a chance to say goodbye. However, it wouldn't be the last time he saw that group of teenagers around the lab.

Nonetheless, within two weeks, he'd end up wishing he'd never seen that group of kids. He'd end up wishing that one girl in particular had never come to the lab – that he hadn't seen her smile or listened to her voice or helped her work the high-powered microscope.

He also wished more than anything that Nick hadn't taken a liking to her and hadn't ended up being her mentor.

Too bad life never listens to one's hopes … it only deals with one's fears.

"_There's a wrong time and wrong place for everyone. It's the place that everything ends at and no one wants to be there when it's their time. And yet … if all endings are planned from the first word of the story, then no one can say it was the 'wrong place, wrong time' for someone. It was the place they were meant to be at, even if it was the last place they would ever venture to."_


	4. Chapter Four

**And All The Misery That Fell In-Between.**

_Playing Chicken on the Railroad Tracks: more dangerous than it looks when both your feet are strapped to the wooden ties and a train's heading straight for you._

Greg had a record three days off in a row at the end of July. The twenty-eighth until midnight on the thirtieth. Everyone expected him to go to California for a cherished day or two to see his parents, but he surprised them all – he was going nowhere.

Well, nowhere important, that is. On purpose.

His cabinet had been perfectly stocked full of his favorite liquors, but soon the supply had dwindled by the evening of the twenty-ninth. Greg hadn't even drunk himself into a dreamless sleep (maybe "coma" would better suffice) yet.

However, his judgment was off. Completely off. Like other people about to make the biggest mistake of their lives –

_(or maybe the last decision of their lives)_

– he thought he'd be fine to drive.

If anyone – even a child – had seen him fall on his way to his car, his keys jingling in an oddly ominous way as he held them in his sweaty hand, that person would have stopped him or at the very least _tried_ to stop him.

Everyone knew not to do it, but still people are killed from someone driving while under the influence of alcohol every single day.

Greg survived. The girl he hit did not.


	5. Chapter Five

**And All The Misery That Fell In-Between.**

_On the Inside Looking Out … through eyes that can't see a damned thing._

Greg woke up to the sounds of heavy footsteps on cement, keys rattling, and the peculiar sound of … a door sliding open?

He couldn't focus. His vision was horribly blurred, his mind unbearably fuzzy and also unintelligible.

"Sanders, get up," a harsh voice said, and an arm jerked him roughly to his feet. The abrupt change in altitude made Greg drop to his knees, his stomach heaving, but no splatter of vomit hit the floor. He had dry-heaved. Had he already thrown up all that was in his stomach –?

"Get up," the voice said again, and his arm seared with pain as Greg was yanked upright, swaying from side to side as he stood, forcing himself – trying his hardest – to figure  
out –

What the fuck was going on?

Greg couldn't even think. Static was playing in his mind in a horribly loud and obnoxious way.

"Come on, Greg," another person said, his voice softer than the other's. Something clicked in Greg's mind.

"Nick?" he croaked, the one word sounding garbled. It grated on his ears, and he fought the urge to vomit again. His throat was closing in – his heart rate skyrocketing dramatically – he swayed even more on the spot.

"Get him out of here, Stokes."

Someone's hand grasped Greg's right arm – just above the elbow – and pulled him out of the room. Only afterwards did it hit him that he had been in a jail cell. For the first time in Greg's life, he'd been put in a cell, and hundreds of people never wanted him to see the outside world again.

"These are the terms of your release –"

"Look at him; he can't even understand you right now."

"Fine. I'm trusting you to tell him the terms of his release once he's done being a drunk bastard. You also have to inform him about what he's done and when his trial is."

"I will."

Greg passed out.


	6. Chapter Six

**All The Misery That Fell In-Between.**

_Hit Where it Hurts._

"… yeah, he's here right now … sleeping on the couch … completely passed out … don't know what … can't even stand to look … kind of wish he had …"

Nick's quietly murmured words entering Greg's mind chased away the static. His hangover was leaving him. How long had he been asleep?

"… coming to now … talk to you later …"

"Nick?"

There was the sound of a phone being hung up.

"Yeah, Greg?"

Greg flinched. His eyes flew open and he felt himself want to curl up in a ball. Nick's voice sounded colder than he'd ever heard before. He opened his mouth, but slowly shut it after he realized he had nothing to say. His mind had cleared considerably, but a slight buzz still lingered. As if realizing this, Nick brought him a glass of cold water.

Greg took it and had a small sip. The freezing liquid hit the roof of his mouth and sloshed over his tongue, giving him a temporary brain freeze. He wouldn't be able to just knock it back.

Nick had been about to go back to the kitchen after surveying Greg for a second, an unreadable expression on his face, but Greg's voice stopped him.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

"No – I meant coming to pick me up. I must've screwed up pretty bad, but I'm fine now," Greg said, smiling up at the Texan.

Nick's face darkened and his eyes flashed. "You have no idea what you've done, do you?"

Greg said nothing.

"You aren't fine now, Greg. You'll never be fine. You've – you've completely FUCKED YOURSELF OVER!" Nick bellowed at the younger man. Greg instinctively pulled away from the enraged Texan in front of him.

"I can't even – Greg – WHY?" Nick yelled, closing the distance between them and then violently grabbing Greg's long hair and pulling his head back, forcing them to be eye-to-eye.

After that moment, Greg never wanted to look into Nick's eyes again; they were no longer the comfortingly warm and understanding brown eyes that he was accustomed to. Instead they were filled with wrath and hatred.

Nick shook Greg's head viciously and the younger man whimpered in pain as a few of his hairs were yanked out of his scalp.

"Why?" the Texan hissed.

"I don't even know what I did," Greg whispered hoarsely, his feet beginning to tingle, his legs going numb in fear.

What had he done?

Nick threw Greg from the couch by his hair, and he fell hard against the coffee table, his mouth hitting the corner. A metallic taste surged over his taste buds. He let out an exclamation of pain and terror as Nick advanced slowly on him.

"Please, Nick, don't –"

"Do you remember Lucy or are you still too much of a fucking drunk to recall?"

"L – Lucy?"

"One of the girls from the internship at the crime lab," Nick told him, his voice going deathly quiet.

An image appeared in Greg's frantic-to-remember mind for an instant: the image of a girl with a mischievous smile and sea-green eyes.

"I –"

Nick stopped less than a foot from where Greg was cowering. His face was contorted with rage and agony.

"You hit her," he said, his words full of venom. "You got in your car after you'd been drinking and fucking KILLED HER! I saw it myself on the red light cam – YOU DIDN'T EVEN STOP!" he screamed, his words echoing horribly in Greg's mind.

Hit her … didn't even stop …

As if containing himself, the Texan turned stiffly and left the room. Greg heard the bedroom door slam shut. The whole house shook and a picture in the hallway fell from the nail it was hanging on and shattered on the hardwood floor.

Killed her … didn't even stop.

Nick was right – he had fucked himself over. Greg would never be fine again … and neither would Lucy.


End file.
